Tagancha

Tagancha is a village in Ukraine in Kanev district, Cherkassy region. The settlement’s estimated population is 1,413 (as of 2001).
In XIX – beginning of XX century it was a shtetl of Kanev Yezd of Kiev Gubernia.

Beginning

Tagancha first appears on the map of the territory adjusted to Kiev in the early XV century. We can assume that Jews appeared in Tagancha at the beginning of the XVI century but there isn’t any documentary evidence. During Bohdan Khmelnitskiy’s uprising (1648-1654) neighboring Kanev was the center of Kanev regiment. The Jewish community was supposedly destroyed by Cossacks during this time.

Tagancha in the middle of XIX century on the painting of Napoleon Orda

In 1750, the Haydamaky detachment led Aleksey Liakh killed one Jewish trader who served the Polish gentry. This is the first mention in historical record of the Tagancha Jewish community.

Tagancha on the map, end of XIX century

In 1678, Tagancha became the property of great Polish magnate Volodymyr Pototskyy. In 1742 the town changed ownership to magnate Mykhaylo Vyshnevetskyy. The Jews came back to the village together with the Poles.

There are no records about what happened the Jewish community during this period. According to Pokhilevich, in 1863 there were 2,225 Orthodox Christians, 358 Jews and 85 Roman Catholics in Tahancha. In the late 19th century, the Jewish community numbered 953 people (21% of total population).

From the late XVIII century until 1918, a Jewish cemetery operated in Tagancha.

In 1887, the rabbi of Tahancha was Pinchas Eliyahu Bokogovsky (his father was a rabbi in Berdychiv).

In the early 20th century there were two synagogues in the shtetl.
More than 1000 Jews lived in Tagancha before the revolution in 1917. Their houses, workshops, and stores were mainly located in Ploske (“flat”, a part of the village). The Jews had two synagogues and a prayer school. Their occupations were craft and trade. They supplied Tagancha residents with different goods and products.

Tagancha entrepreneurs list from Russian Empire Business Directories by 1913

Pogroms

First pogrom was organised by local pisants in 1919. There were 8 Jews killed.
On the first day of the pogrom several people were killed and the head of the Klivanskiy council as well. During the following attacks when there was nothing left to be robbed, the bandits began to burn Jewish houses. The whole shtetl was burnt down.

Second pogrom was organised by Denikin’s soldiers with active involment of local Ukrainians. 8 Jews were killed and entire Jews population escaped to Korsun.

From the book “Pogroms in Ukraine” by V.Segiychuk:
“In 1920, People who lived in Tagancha asked us to return to the village. Ten Jewish families agreed to settle back in Tagancha and moved there from Korsun. They had been living there for two months, when one night the local peasants attacked the settlers and slaughtered all ten families. They didn’t spare even children, they threw them into the well. These peasants had been planning to destroy all ten families before.
Several dozen of Tagancha Jews were thrown into the deep wells. There were alive people among them though. People say their number was about one hundred. After the execution the wells were filled. It is known that some Jews tried to escape through the forest to Korsun. They were caught in the tract of Krutaya Gora and thrown into a nearby well at the bank under the mountain. There were killed 58 Jews.”

When there was no one alive 24 Jewish houses were burnt on the 24th (11th) of September.

Now it is difficult to find out who organized the second and the bloodiest pogrom in Tagancha. According to one version it was Petliurite ataman Terentiya Fursenko (Yaryy) and the second one is that it was a Bolshevik detachment of Fedorenko. However, it was known that Fedorenko defended Jews and saved their community from the pogrom. The main organizer of the pogrom was the local Ukrainian population.

In Korsun, there were killed 14 Tagancha Jews in 2 pogroms and 200 died because of deseases.

After Civil War

After the pogroms there were no Jews in the village.
Since then old residents of Tagancha connect all the misfortunes, accidents, and troubles that fall upon the village with the God’s punishment for the bloody crime committed against the Jews.

Ruins of Jewish house in Tagancha, 2016

In 1924, a Jewish collective farm named after “Tagancha” was formed in outside the village Novozhitomir, Sofiyevka district, Dnepropetrovsk region. It is unknown whether its founder was a member of the destroyed community in Tagancha or wasn’t. It was financed by organization Joint. In its digitized archives we find the following pictures of the Jewish collective farm “Tagancha”.

A group of children in Tagancha pose for a photo

Colonists prayed together in Tagancha in the Krivoy Rog district

Settlers and visitors at the Tagancha colony

School building

Three settlers and barefoot young girl pose in front of a sod dugout

Work process farm buildings and silo

Jewish cemetery

During the war, the cemetery was destroyed. The tombstones were taken away and soon the construction of residential houses began. Currently, the territory is built up with residential buildings. Among the local residents interviewed by Lo Tishach, only one woman knew about the Jewish cemetery. According to this woman, it used to be located on the site of house number 40 and a few other houses along Petrenko Street.

After the War

During the war in the winter 1942, a column that consisted of several hundreds of Jews was being driven through the village from the unknown place of the left bank of the Dnieper. All these people were shot in Korsun.

Vasyl Doroshenko stated that he met some Tagancha Jews in Korsun and Kiev. They perceived any mention of Tagancha with horror, pain, anger and indignation because of that awful “Massacre of St. Bartholomew”.

Local historian Vasiliy Doroshenko and military trainer Tzvi Arieli during our visit in 2016

In the 1990s, local historian Vasiliy Doroshenko and the head of Tagancha village council Alexander Pozhdem applied to Korsun Jewish community with the initiative to establish a monument to the destroyed Jewish community in the centre of the village. Unfortunately, there was no result because of the changing of the head of the council.

Ruins of Jewish house in Tagancha, 2016

The local legend of “Jewish Well”.

Legend was recorded by a Tagancha resident Moisey Oniskovich Gvozdenko, born in 1890 by the students of Tagancha school in September 1968.
Yaryy’s band marauded through Tagancha. It terrorized the local population especially the Jewish community. They thought that the Jews had gold.
In the autumn 1919 they organized a pogrom against the Jews. They slaughtered children , women, elders and threw them into the wells in Ploske (so called Jewish place). Then they burnt their houses ot the ground. Some of the Jews tried to escape to Korsun with their children. But bandits caught them near Kruta Mountain , killed them and threw their bodies into the well. After the massacre was over the well started to speak human language:
– Dear people! Don’t drink this water, it’s my children’s blood.
The shepherds who came to drink ran away.
Since then it was renamed into Jewish well. Soon the well fell into decay, was sad, crystal source dried out, it was covered with silt and sedges, and became a forgetful grave of innocently killed people. The exact place of the well is currently unknown.

Famous Jews from Tagancha

Jewish cemetery

During the war, the cemetery was destroyed. The tombstones were taken away and soon the construction of residential houses began. Currently, the territory is built up with residential buildings. Among the local residents interviewed by Lo Tishach, only one woman knew about the Jewish cemetery. According to this woman, it used to be located on the site of house number 40 and a few other houses along Petrenko Street.

Genealogy

In Cherkassy Archive store next documents regarding Jewish history of Tagancha: